Unforgotten (Forgiven)

forced cash on me too. Think he’s worried you might fall victim to my terrible cooking, so I’m gonna go out and get some pizza. Wanna come?”
“Come where?”
“To the pizza place. It’s next to the pub, so we can get a beer while we wait.”
Billy chewed on his lip, and an overwhelming urge to stop him swept over me.
My hands itched. I shoved them in my pockets and feigned indifference with a shrug. “Don’t worry if you’re not up for it. I can leave you in peace.”
Still nothing. A wariness I couldn’t decipher marred Billy’s sharp features, and I suddenly felt bad for suggesting something so simple. And for assuming he’d want to touch base with me. Perhaps he’d been banking on us avoiding each other, but if Luke’s plan for his employment panned out, unfortunately for Billy, he was stuck with me in more ways than one.
The heavy silence stretched out. I started to back up.
Billy caught my wrist. “Um. Wait. Sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to, just not sure if I fancy braving Rushmere’s finest drinking crowds yet. It’s been a while, you know?”
“I know.” I considered his words and wondered what could be so daunting about a quick drink in the pub. Then I remembered Billy had lived a different life in this town to the rest of us. Not content to bumble along, he’d run with the dregs, constantly in trouble with the police and banned from the high street, rarely without fight-won cuts and bruises to his knuckles. It was highly likely there were faces he didn’t want to see...if he was serious about staying out of trouble.
And it was a big if. I didn’t know much about Billy anymore, but I knew that.
I also knew that he was still gripping my wrist hard enough to leave a bruise, and that I liked it enough for my blood to run hot.
With more effort than I wanted to contemplate, I reclaimed my arm.
Billy blinked, as if he’d forgotten he was holding it.
I chanced a soft fist to his bicep. “Okay. I’m gonna phone it in and go pick it up. That way neither of us has to cook—which you’ll be grateful for after I’ve run through my repertoire of pretty average omelettes—and we can bypass the pub completely.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Actually, I do. I promised Luke I wouldn’t leave you alone on your first night, I’m starving, and I hate eating alone, so—”
“He asked you to babysit me?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t in the business of diplomacy. Years of my sister’s quick temper had taught me that it got me nowhere as fast as brutal honesty. “Guess he figured you were less likely to punch me than you are him.”
“I didn’t come here to punch anybody, and you don’t have to supervise me. I’m not going to nick anything.”
“Don’t care if you do. Nothing here will get you very far.”
Billy leant on the doorframe, his smirk returning. “You actually think I will, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying. I know you’re a born thief, Daley, but you once told me you only stole from people you didn’t like, and I’m hoping we don’t know each other well enough to be there just yet.”
“You have a good memory. I don’t remember ever telling you anything.”
Maybe because we hadn’t done much talking the last time we’d been this close, but I didn’t have the balls to bring it up. If my presence was affecting him anywhere near as much as his was me, he was doing a Herculean job of hiding it.
Me? I had to get away before my heart beat out of my chest and hit him in the face.
Idiot. But that was nothing new. My sister was the tough one. Of the two of us, I was the sensitive soul.
I mumbled a goodbye and left him in the doorway. Taking the stairs two at a time, I was in the van before I knew it, jamming the keys into the ignition with shaky hands. It’s not him. I’m just hungry.
Yeah right. I’d had three sandwiches for lunch and a bag of chips as an afternoon snack. I’d suggested dinner as it was painfully obvious, despite Billy’s unearthly beauty, that he hadn’t had a decent meal in months. Sunken eyes, pale skin—that boy was tired and undernourished, two things I could rectify without making an idiot out of myself.
I drove into town and ordered two extra large pizzas, a salad, and some sweet potato fries, just to be safe. While it was cooking, I raided the bakery next door and bought a French-ish apple tart that looked almost as good as Mia’s.
It didn’t take as long as I needed it to, and I got back in the van as keyed up as when I’d left the house.
My house.
With Billy Daley inside it.
Man, it had been a strange twenty-four hours. I took the scenic route home, wishing Billy’s mother was still around so I could borrow her dog and take him for a nice long walk, but she’d taken the dog with her and left Billy behind.
In my house.
I swung the van onto the drive and let myself in. It was still quiet and dark. Assuming Billy was upstairs, I switched the kitchen light on and jumped a mile. “Putain! Dude. What are you sitting in the dark for?”
Billy rose from the kitchen floor, his cat draped majestically around his neck. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare the French out of you.”
“You didn’t scare me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“Why are you sitting in the dark?”
Billy shrugged, and the shadows made his shoulders seem even slimmer. “Habit. Didn’t have electric at my old place.”
“You had no electricity in your house?”
“It wasn’t a house.”
I searched my brain for anything Luke might’ve mentioned about where Billy had been living the past few months, but of course there was nothing, because Luke never said anything about anything unless I asked him a direct question. “Fair enough. I got the food. You want a beer?”
“If you’ve got